


(To Dance) In a Clearing in a Forest

by KorrohShipper



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Dancing, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Steggy - Freeform, War, War time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21952942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KorrohShipper/pseuds/KorrohShipper
Summary: “Yes. We’re now in position, Captain.” She smiled and looked up at him. She only realized how beautiful he looked. “Now you’ve won half the battle.”“The other half?” it was ironic, considering his bulky frame, but his voice sounded small.“Not to step on your partner’s toes.”
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa (Background), Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 22





	(To Dance) In a Clearing in a Forest

**Author's Note:**

> It's not very cheerful.

Peggy Carter’s Christmas eve always began with a slow song, a bottle of wine she kept hidden only opened during the said day, and a head of memories.

Her apartment was empty. The process of moving over her items to Daniel’s two-story house in the suburbs near New Jersey, and therefore SHIELD, left her apartment looking bare, leaving little trace of the fact that she lived there for a little over 3 years.

Clothes already boxed and items wrapped in newspaper, the transition from her current apartment to the next point of her life was nearly complete. Tomorrow, the very day after Christmas, would mark the beginning of her new life—one with Daniel, a new start.

And she loved him. Peggy couldn’t put her love for Daniel into words.

But it was with the days like Christmas where the bright future seemed dim, and the cheer of holidays seem gloomy like the rainy skies that plagued the London days.

Peggy lifted the portrait off the wall, revealing an expertly made burrow deep enough for 12 bottles of 1934 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild.

A ghost of a smile touched her lips as her thumb grazed the dust-caked label—Howard had bet that she couldn’t do one hundred push-ups.

She did him one better; she did one hundred seven one-handed push-ups. As her spoils of war, she was awarded, that very same winter, a crate of finely aged wine that cost more than the bunker she’d been assigned to as she served as the British liaison to the American-based SSR.

A bottle, that same year during the war, was given to Timothy Dugan on the condition he showered daily for a week. Her nose, no matter cost, was eternally grateful for the blissful respite.

In her stock of twelve bottles, only one remains opened, not nearly half, even.

Gingerly taking the bottle into the small kitchenette, Peggy pulled the cork and freely poured its content into a glass cup. The radio was switched from a news station in lieu of soft, slow, jazz music that filled the small room and warmly drowned out the New York noise.

Letting her feet carry her well into the middle of the bare living room, Peggy got on her knees, her fingers nimbly making out the small gap on the floor. With great care, she lifted one loose plank and produced from it a small jewelry box.

Up on her feet once more, arms propped by the small window that showcased the New York skyline, the box lid creaked open in a squeaky protest. Nonetheless, its contents were revealed, showing, in its dusty wake, a collection of yellowed newspaper snips, cloudy family heirlooms that felt wrong to wear, and a pair of metal, cut out sheets that weren’t—officially—supposed to be there.

Peggy hung it up in the air for her to see, its metal surface catching the light just in time for her to see his name flash. It was quick, that moment of fluidity, but it came crashing down together all the same.

“I’m getting married.” She whispered to the tags, not at all hoping for a response, but just, maybe with all her heart, closure.

She held her hand up, her finger modestly adorned by a simple ring she chose out with Daniel just a few months ago. “The wedding’s next March. Your top squad’s invited, you know.” It went without saying that a spot was held for him, just in case, by some miracle, he would show up.

It was futile, she knew, but it helped. Knowing there was a spot for him, as if he was just away, still to return home. It helped knowing that people still remembered him, not as the masked, hero who wore the flag on his chest.

No.

As himself, as Steven Grant Rogers. It helped that the people around her knew him, and while it may not have been in the way she knew Steve, there was a sense of understanding. They all had lost.

“It’s funny. I never thought that the next wedding I’d attend would be mine.” She murmured under her breath, a hint wistful pain still lodged deep in her voice and heart. Her eyes grew misty and Peggy didn’t even bother to wipe it away. “All the hours we spent practicing I thought was for naught suddenly had use, yes?”

Peggy remembered that winter like it was yesterday, when times were simpler.

There were no dressed up conspiracies of giant corporations or off-shoot Hydra branches left to behead, just a war to win and a future to secure.

It started with a letter that wasn’t even his.

A mission deep behind the enemy lines, it was a Christmas miracle that they managed to have their letters delivered despite being more than a few months late. She could remember Dugan’s voice, whooping for joy when a letter had arrived for him, a photograph of his son, a little more than 5 months-old, was enclosed in the letter.

His cheer, Peggy could still recall, was as infectious as his awful stench. But no matter how appalling the air he left behind was, she couldn’t but duck her head trying to map out wherever he went flashing the little photograph in his hands, beaming and jumping up and down like a little boy.

On the other side of their camp, just lit by the warm embers in the short moments before the skies would fade of its orange hues and be filled with the great inkiness of the darkness that beheld her as she watched the skyline, was two less enthusiastic members of their group.

Sergeant Barnes was sitting atop a piece of log lodged from the ground up, in his hands was a letter and his brows furrowed. Peggy wasn’t sure how she’d made up his expression—his knuckles weren’t bared white but the letter was held firmly in his grasp.

He wasn’t angry, she deduced, instead in shock.

His brows knotted together and lips pursed into a thin line, but not into a deep scowl. It was apparent he wasn’t upset, but whatever news it was didn’t sit well with him.

And Steve, who hovered over his shoulder like a blonde, hulking Irish mosquito, showed his displeasure much clearly.

Morita had fished out from his pack a tin can of beef and chicken while Dugan stole from her the one bottle he had convinced her to bring on their mission from her stock of wine winnings from the bet with Howard. The wine, it appeared, received rave reviews if Dugan was to be trusted—in Peggy’s opinion, Timothy would give a hearty thumbs-up to anything that can get him drunk—and with the special occasion, she couldn’t but let it slide.

The scent of beef roasted on an open campfire with chicken wafted over to their spot but the two soldiers refused to budge, still both locked in a world of their own courtesy of the letter that remained to catch their attention.

“Boys?” she called out, but not a single one of them answered.

While the rest of the commandos cheered and exchanged cigarettes, Peggy dropped her sack and trailed towards Steve and Barnes.

They quickly registered that they had company and their heads whipped up to her direction. Steve managed a smile—a real one; pleasant, like he was sincerely glad to have seen her—but his eyes would droop to the side, just where the letter was held up.

“Carter.” Barnes acknowledged.

Steve looked more attentive. “Hiya, Peg.”

Her eyes teetered towards the letter. “Bad news?” she readied herself for the terrible news they’re about to bomb on her.

Barnes swallowed deep. “My sister.” Peggy’s stomach dropped. She imagined a nurse in the front, a field hospital blown up to the skies. Her condolences were just about ready to spill out when Barnes continued, “she got married.”

It was one of those run-off sentences that took more than a full moment to understand its gravity. “Congratulations?” even she sounded unsure. “I’m sure it calls for celebration.”

Barnes now scowled. “She’s my sister. I promised her I’d be home for Christmas, to be with her when she gets married. Here I am. What a joke of a brother.” He grumbled before leaving them alone, folding the letter and shoving it down inside one of his jacket’s many pockets.

“Sorry about that.” Steve apologized for his friend. “Bucky really wanted to be home for the wedding.”

“I can see that.” She could still make out Barnes’ sulking form in the midst of merry men as they ate their make-shift Christmas dinner. It wasn’t much, but to a band of brothers in war, it was the entire world.

Peggy peered over to Steve, his arms were crossed, tightly so.

“And you’re not happy with this news?”

Steve was perplexed. “No.” He said, confused. “She’s married. Of course I’m happy. Why’d you think that?”

“Body language.” She picked him off, one by one. “Your shoulders are tense, teeth gritted. You keep glancing from one spot to another; rather unfocused, you see?” she said with a smile, a little too breathless for her liking, but when he exhaled and gave her that effortless charming smile, she found that it was alright, in the spirit of Christmas, of course, to let loose if only a bit.

“Is he a bad man?”

Steve shook his head. “No. Richard Proctor’s a great guy. Upstanding, too. Joined right after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. Got sent home in ’43 when a shrapnel got stuck up in his arm. Treats her real nice, hates bullies. One of the better fellas up in our street, helped Bucky fight off the bullies who beat me up in an alley or two.”

“Then why are you so worked up about it?”

He gave her a helpless smile. “Remember when I was still small and you guys were taking me to get,” his hands gestured towards himself, raised it well to his height, “— _bigger_.”

Peggy stifled a laugh and gestured for him to go on. “I remember.”

“I told you how I never danced before.” She remembered that extremely well. She pitied any woman who didn’t he was worth their time. Passing up the chance to have a conversation with him, Peggy understood with a decisive realization, was a loss she couldn’t bear to afford.

“Waiting for the right partner, no matter the people who insist they are.” She teased, a bit pointedly, but without malice. The Pvt. Lorraine affair was a thing of the past, occasionally brought up to ruffle the funny feathers and get a laugh out of one another.

But it didn’t stop Steve’s cheeks from growing red. She found it endearing, however, his reaction to whenever she’d bring it up. “Yeah, the right partner,” he shrugged helplessly and produced his own letter. It was from the same woman, Rebecca Barnes.

He motioned for her to take it from his hands and so she did. Peggy scanned the letter and carefully assessed each line of words. Nothing seemed out of place except that one note after the letter. She couldn’t help but smile, feeling a rush of warmth.

“She’s asked you to give her away?”

Peggy wasn’t surprised. She’s read his family and personal history. Steve Rogers was practically and essentially, for all intents and purposes, the fifth Barnes child. Especially after the death of his mother, Steve was taken into the fold.

So, Peggy wasn’t the least bit surprised when Becca Barnes wrote to her surrogate brother, asking him to give her away with her brother in lieu of the family patriarch, who’s been confined to a wheelchair ever since he came home from the war in ’42.

“This is wonderful.”

He sighed, “Not just that. You didn’t read the last part.” He added.

Peggy’s eyes scanned the paper once more. “What? Dancing?”

Steve nodded. “I don’t know how. It’s special day, I didn’t want to say no but I hardly want to ruin it—I’m all left feet.” He blew a breath and she could see how disappointed he was, not at the war that raged on and kept him away from his family, but at himself for not finding a way to end it sooner. “And now’s married and she counted on me and I wasn’t there.”

There was no denying the love she felt for the man who stood in front of her. So, instead of telling him to buck up, she smiled at him, the same ruby-red lipped smile she gave him when he got the flag back at Camp Lehigh, and linked their arms together, “Trade shifts with Monty.”

She and Falsworth had been assigned a shift together for the night watch.

His head lolled to a side, confusion evident on his face. “Why?”

“When you get home,” she said as if there wasn’t a doubt that he’d go back, “You and Sergeant Barnes will take her dancing. Later, well, I’ll teach you how.”

And so, the hours past and when Steve showed up by the campfire, bleary eyes but eager to learn, she grinned. Dugan snored in his sleeping bag, mustache happily twirled as he embraced the photograph to his chest and the bottle of wine he stole from her.

Fittingly, she stole it back. While walking, they took swigs from the bottle. Her mother would have had her nerves shot from what she was doing, cried out on how unladylike she was.

She took him to a secluded part of the camp, not too far away to keep an eye on their surroundings, but with just enough trees and a section of clearing to afford them a decent space for dancing.

The river calmly rode in, a free gushing that sent a soothing lull. Peggy imagined a different scene, a dance hall instead of a forest, a band instead of a river. But she imagined her dance partner all the same, and how could she say no to dancing under the stars?

“Alright, give me your hand, thank you.” He was stiff, scared to move out of place and the more he was determined to maintain a shred of propriety, the more liable she was to laugh and give their cover away. “We’re dancing, Steve, not pacing for a duel. Come closer.” He blushed but conceded and obeyed.

Once reasonably within arms’ length, his palm carried her efficiently, and he asked, voice wavering, “Is this okay?”

Realizing he wasn’t about to step closer, she took initiative and looped his hand just over her waist and onto the small of her back. His bones tensed up and nearly withdrew his arm had she not smiled and gave him a supportive squeeze.

“You’re doing fine.” His palm tentatively, with much consideration, met the small of her back. He loosened up a bit, giving a shaky breath and an even shakier smile.

“I am?”

“Yes. We’re now in position, Captain.” She smiled and looked up at him. She only realized how beautiful he looked. “Now you’ve won half the battle.”

“The other half?” it was ironic, considering his bulky frame, but his voice sounded small.

“Not to step on your partner’s toes.”

Wonky and rigid, they began moving, uncoordinated at first, but as the moments passed, it was much more fluid. Steve wasn’t a bad dancer, per se, he just had no one to tell him he was a good one in the first place.

The crickets sounded, and their time would soon run out, but leaving each other’s arms, while too breathless from a far too slow dance and a non-existent song, was something they found they could not do. “I wish I could give you better.” He whispered to her, a silent confession.

“Better?” she echoed. “On whatever for?” the stars of the skies, the subtle cracking of the twigs under the pressure of the fire in the distance, and the soft gushes of the river, while not a band, wasn’t something to scoff at. “I think this is rather wonderful. Very rustic if not romantic.”

Steve blushed, but instead of becoming antsy like did once earlier that night, he just held her tighter, pulling her closer to him, so much so that she could already hear and count the fluttering heart beats that blossomed in his chest.

“Still,” he pressed. “You deserve better. Being treated right.”

She raised a brow at him. “Are you not treating me right?”

Steve shrugged. “Not the way you deserve.”

“And I presume you’re the leading expert on how I should be treated?” she teased.

He smiled softly and leaned down, humming an indiscernible tune to her ear as she felt him smile against her ear. “You deserve that full red carpet, Peggy. Pull out all the stops, you know?” there was a ringing sincerity to his voice and she asked herself what had she done, in this life and the last one, to deserve someone as pure and good as Steve Rogers.

“Well, if you’ll ask me, I’d say all the bells and whistles don’t mean a bloody thing. Only one thing truly matters.”

“What’s that?”

Peggy smirked, leaning closer and rising to the tip of her toes. This time around, she was the one whose lips nearly caught to the other’s lips. She took a deep breath, paused, before holding him tighter once more, “The right partner.”

Still he persists. “I’ll make it up. After this mission with Zola, I’ll make it up. We could go dancing. Real band, real lights, music and all.” And he looked at her, eyes full of determination and Peggy's fairly certain that if she's asked him of the stars and moon above, he would move heaven and earth just to get it for her. 

Peggy raised a brow. She had half a mind to rebut, but instead, in a moment blurred by alcohol and what little flutter that kicked in her stomach, she indulged him, "And where do you suppose we'll get that?"

He shrugged happily, gazing at the stars before locking his eyes with hers, "It's Christmas. The season's full of miracles."

“I’ll hold you to that.” But binding promises didn’t hold its ground for long. In the heat of his embrace, their breaths mingling in the same way, she whispered heart beating loudly and blood pounding in her veins, “Happy Christmas, Steve.”

It probably meant something more than a holiday greeting, a deeper confession that her cheeks probably flamed up for. But if he understood, she’ll never know.

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes died after falling off a train and into the icy Danube River just after three weeks. A month after Christmas, Captain Steven Grant Rogers would soon follow, crashing his plane into the arctic—though official military releases would entail it was over the Pacific to stop an unknown onslaught of forces towards the west coast—and into the waters of the unknown.

Slowly, the forest and the river faded out. The rustic sound of fire and gentle, soothing noise of the river was drowned out by the New York noise.

Gone was Steve and in her arms remained the glass of wine and the dog tags she held to her chest. The light of a thousand stars was replaced by the blinking lights of the city and the music played soft, nearly silent to her ears.

Tomorrow, she would continue packing. Tomorrow, she would smile as she’d say goodbye to her Brooklyn apartment.

Brooklyn would no longer need Agent Carter to keep it safe, not when Steve Rogers made it home in the form of his blood finally free from its captivity. Now he roamed his city and world, a shield of hope and light to protect it. No longer was Captain America bound to the people who seek power, Steve Roger’s finally home in his Brooklyn.

Tomorrow, she would meet Daniel at the footstep of her apartment and she'd kiss him and hope to God, any god that ever was, is, or will be, that she can convey and tell him just how much she loves him with that kiss.

But that was still tomorrow, more than 8 hours away, much like the hangover she’s expected to have.

Tonight, she can be someone else. Peggy can be that same Agent who was on the radio when the communication was cut. She can be that girl who entered the war and left a woman scarred and battered, hurt with all the anguish as she left the New York harbor and drove all the way to Brooklyn knowing to herself, with a deep sense of bitter, that this wasn’t how she imagined she would go to his city.

Not his beloved Brooklyn.

She thought to herself, when she moved to knock on the doors of George and Winnifred Barnes, this wasn’t how she was supposed to meet them. She was supposed to meet them after a date or two, introduced by Steve as James Barnes would try to enchant everyone with mostly false or exaggerated stories, but all nonetheless flattering.

She would imagine that Winnifred would pull her to a side and tell her that Sarah Rogers would have been so happy to see that her little, golden boy finally found that right partner.

But it wasn’t like that. Instead, she knocked on the door and finally delivered the two folded flags that represented their fallen boys as they were lost to them as much as they were to her.

And instead of the talk Peggy imagined she once would have with the Barnes matriarch, she was given a steely reminder of living in a world without the light that guided her most.

It was not a cruel reminder, but it was neither soft nor gentle. “Let go. Move forward and move on. Grieve while you must, but you carry with you a memory of them. Don’t let them die in vain. Don’t let them die a second time when their deaths are rendered meaningless. Don’t let them die a final time when the world forgets their names.”

The strong but tear-woven order of Winnifred Barnes still carried her to live to fight another day.

But with leaving Brooklyn, that last tether she had to Steve, she let go. Winnifred Barnes once warned, to stop trying to reclaim the past with the futile efforts of channeling her grief into a moment of her once golden yesterday.

It was generally good life advice. Let go, move forward, and move on.

But for once, just once in a year—for the last time in her lifetime before she moves forward in her life with Daniel—she would surrender to the illusions of a simpler past, when she taught Steve how to dance, not just for a sister who was once promised both her brothers, but also for herself.

Just for that one night, that Christmas eve as she held herself in a cold and singular embrace of her tears, the same wine and his dog tags, Peggy would surrender to the memories of her past, of the idyllic future she once held in her arms and always kept in her heart of hearts.

She would imagine his warmth and his embrace. His love and his presence. She would will him to life, and in her heart and mind, in that 8 hours, he would be alive, and perfect, and _hers_.

Peggy would see, even if it’s just for one last hour before the end dawn of a new age, a brave and strange future in the new decade, she’ll allow herself a moment to pretend.

For now, she wasn’t Peggy Carter, the newly appointed Director of SHIELD. She wasn’t Peggy Carter, soon to be Peggy Carter-Sousa.

None of that now.

At the moment, that was yet to happen, yet to be fulfilled or even dreamed of.

Right now, she’s Peggy Carter.

She’s the British liaison who fell in love with the scrawny private who didn’t know how to quit. The man who thought before acting. The man given the chance for his body to match the fighting spirit his mind and heart held.

At the moment, the year ceased to be 1949.

She’s transported back to 1944, where she spent a winter’s eve with her friends and brothers in arms. Where she knows her love for her Captain as she teaches him to dance in a clearing in the forest, holding him close in her arms on a chilly night of December. A young woman in love with a man who loves her just as much.

And she could be this woman as she once longed to be in what seemed like all those years ago, like an entire lifetime ago.

In the warm embrace of the alcohol's influence, a dizzying spell that let her dream of the illusion, she would find herself in that same forest in Germany. Peggy would take him by his arm and they would take swigs from the bottle. She could teach him how to dance, and he would promise to take her dancing properly one day. She would begin it and end it with a whisper to his ears and say one thing, a greeting that held a deeper, fervent confession in it altogether.

She'd whisper it to herself, hoping that maybe, wherever he was, Steve would hear it and understand what it meant. She wished, in the moment when they danced under the light of a thousand stars, he understood what she meant by saying:

“Happy Christmas, Steve.”

She had a strong feeling he understood, anyways. 

It's Christmas. The season's full of miracles.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas!
> 
> I told you it wasn't very cheerful.
> 
> Edit: Alright, I just got my ass handed to me by someone. It's "Happy Christmas" apparently, across the pond.


End file.
